Join us on Twitter and IRC (#ludumdare on Afternet.org) for the Theme Announcement!

Thanks everyone for coming out! For the next 3 weeks, we’ll be Playing and Rating the games you created.You NEED ratings to get a score at the end. Play and Rate games to help others find your game.We’ll be announcing Ludum Dare 36’s August date alongside the results.

New Server: Welcome to the New (less expensive) Server! Find any problems? Report them here.

Ama

Your father is sick. Dive for pearls and sell them at market to pay for the medicine that will save him.

This is an HTML5 game that runs in browser. We recommend using Google Chrome. It is somewhat playable on mobile devices but the sound doesn't always work and you may experience slowdown on particular models.

Paul (mrbungle) and Rich (Fazz) made this. Adam did music and sound (www.adamrustidge.com).

Comments

I really liked the audio which made it relaxing, and the rate you use up oxygen was pretty good so I felt like I had enough time to swim around and explore a bit before taking the seashells back to the boat.

Cool. The graphics and the music set the mood effectively, and it's very easy to play. My main suggestion is for there to be more difference between the levels besides different maps. Maybe upgrades to your air or speed, or different kinds of treasures.

Great game. I loved the art, the sounds were very nice, and the game played well. Solid story matched with interesting gameplay makes for a fun game. I liked your unique take on the theme! No real problems that I could find.

Music was very thematic and added to the overall mood of the game. The graphics were well done. Subtle little things like the bubbles, the day/night cycle, the level getting darker the deeper you go, etc. all really added to the mood. The game had a very eco the dolphin feel to it, in a good way. At first, I thought getting a negative score in the first level was a commentary on the impossibility of people to afford medical bills, but then I learned it actually is possible to progress through the levels.

The levels were somewhat challenging, which definitely isn't a bad thing in itself, but combined with how slowly your character moved and the fact that you get stuck on walls made it very tedious to start over. After three attempts I didn't feel much motivation to try again, which is a shame because I'd like to see the future levels.

Look into something called the "Seperating Axis Theorem" or SAT. It's very useful for game collision, and there are several very well documented tutorials and implementations. It makes it easy to make entities "slide" along the boundaries of others, which would've made navigating the levels much less tedious.

The story is a heart-breaking one, but very effectively told with the help of the graphics, music, and general ambiance. I assume there might be a happy ending if you beat the game, so maybe I will come back and try again.

I like the swimming animation - really good pixel work. The music is also a very good fit. The idea is a good use of the theme but by the third level I lost interest and drown myself (hopefully dad is cured by day 3!)

This is pretty nice, but the graphics were a bit blurry, it looks like you used anti-aliasing. When using low-res pixel art it's best to go for a crisp look than to try to smooth it out with AA, IMO. The gameplay was a bit simplistic too, I would have liked there to be more challenge. I did like the relaxing music though.

@NiceAlexanderAS unfortunately playmycode (the IDE we used) is in beta and there are some Mozilla Firefox implementation issues we have no influence over. We recommended everyone use Chrome if possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.

@Penguincat we are not using any anti-aliasing, the image blur is due to opengl texture parameters that we do not have access to. They are hardcoded to glTexParameteri(..GL_NEAREST) not the more suitable GL_LINEAR. We chose the IDE for convenience and speed, slight image blur is an unfortunate drawback.

@Fritzendugan "Separating Axis Theorem" is a really good suggestion, thanks! If we develop this game further CD is definitely something we will readdress!

Very nice game! It was not completely obvious how much time you have until the level ends. Two dive phases?
The graphics are nice, although the square tiles could certainly be improved. The collision is an issue as already mentioned. The audio fits the game very well, also the story was a nice addition.
This could well be extended with fish, jellyfish, squids and maybe different kind of treasures.
I had fun playing this game!

It has a nice look (reminds me of Ecco the Dolphin), and some of the level design is quite tricky (in a good way). My only real complaint is that the movement is a little stiff. It would probably benefit from having some form of acceleration and momentum to make it feel more natural. Other than that I really enjoyed it!

Love all the details; in particular how the sky changes as the day progresses. Much cooler than using an on-screen timer.

Gameplay is a little simple, but I wouldn't say that's a problem.

Some post-compo suggestions:
- Prevent getting "stuck" on corners.
- More "swimmy" motion; something like Aquaria's but simpler.
- More to explore: Sea creatures, special treasures, what have you. Lots of room for that sort of thing.

This is an all around great game. I love the dynamic of getting as many shells as possible while not reducing your speed with the additional weight. Graphics were pretty good, and music and the small touches (like the red fading and intense music when almost out of breath) is really what made this game stand out for me. Great job!

I'd just like to echo Fazz and say thanks to everyone for your kind words and excellent suggestions.

@thaaks Correct, you can complete 2 fully oxygenated dive phases within a single day cycle. A dive can last up to 2 minutes and the sun has finished setting after 3 minutes. If you surface and it's night, the level ends.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to place in the final results, you NEED votes. The easiest way to get votes is by rating other games. Judging lasts for 3 weeks following the end of Ludum Dare. For best effect, rate 20 games as soon as possible. Rating more games is encouraged.

MORE TIPS AND DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

TEAMS: Teams entering the Jam should pick a single representative to submit your game, or create a team specific account you can share. We currently do not support Team Voting, but sharing an account and together playing and rating games is acceptable.

NOT LOGGED IN?: If you get a message about not being logged in, even though you are, it’s because your web browser cached the non-logged in page. You can fix this by either refreshing your cache or clearing your cache. CTRL+F5 in many browsers. Chrome is a bit more work. Press F12 to enable Developer Mode, then you can right click on the refresh button and select “Empty Cache and Hard Reload”. This option is unavailable if you are not in Developer Mode.

PORTS: Ports to other platforms can be done after the deadline. That said, the sooner you finish your port, the sooner people can play your game, improving your chances of placing in the final results. For best results, provide a Web version of your game, or a Windows version with no dependencies. Also be sure to rate about 20 games to improve your visibility.

MY GAME DOESN’T SHOW UP: If you can’t find your game, it’s usually because the URL to your downloads are missing ‘http://‘. Fix your URLs (http://mysite.com/mygame.zip) and you will show up.

MY GAME CRASHES, IS UNBEATABLE, OR I MADE A TYPO: We allow you to fix crash or win condition bugs after the deadline (in a sense, like “porting” to support more players). We also allow “typo” bugs. I.e. A true that should have been a false, a word that should have been a different word, very tiny changes that you would have caught if you had more sleep. We leave this open to interpretation, but generally speaking your game should be identical to the game you submitted. No new features, just things you messed up last minute. Typos.